Abby Gaines - That New York Minute

“That’s not like you.” Haylee fiddled with the cord of the window-blinds until they were wide-open, exposing the view of Madison Avenue far below.

“I said something to Garrett that put me off balance.” Rachel nodded in acknowledgment of Haylee’s small sound of surprise—Haylee hadn’t expected Garrett to be on the list, either. “A stupid joke about his mom, and it turns out she’s dead.”

Her distraction might have even worse consequences than she’d feared. How many of the partners would deem her unworthy of even her current job based on today’s performance? The sooner Garrett quit, the better.

Haylee grimaced. “Oh, yeah, his mom died in that plane crash.”

Rachel frowned. “No, it was cancer.”

“Uh-uh,” Haylee said with complete certainty. “It was a plane crash. One of those scenic flights … at Thanksgiving, maybe five, six years ago? I asked Garrett about his family back when he joined, and he told me. Poor guy, he’s still pretty cut up about it.”

Rachel froze.

Garrett’s sob story about the chemo and the Doris Day movies and “the difference between a miserable day and an okay one”… He’d made it up?

Why?

What kind of person would lie about his mother’s death?

She scanned the work area beyond the glass wall, where her colleagues, the hardest-working group of people she knew—people she might soon be forced to leave—bustled around. Then she saw him.

Garrett, chatting to Julie, a junior creative—one of Rachel’s junior creatives—his face a study in determined friendliness.

Julie looked overwhelmed … then, when Garrett touched her shoulder lightly, she peered up at him through demurely lowered lashes.

What the — ? Before she even thought about what she was doing, Rachel had crossed to the glass wall, banged it hard with the palm of her hand.

“Rachel?” Haylee said.

Julie looked up, waved and returned to her work. Garrett swiveled to face Rachel. Their eyes met.

The events of the past twelve hours flashed through her mind. Last night in the bar, this morning’s elevator ride, the meeting, her guilty discomfort, her distraction, the way she hadn’t fought back when her work was questioned. What had Garrett said in the elevator? “You don’t react in the moment. That’s your weakness.”

Last night took on a whole new significance. Garrett had known he would see her in this morning’s meeting and he’d set out to humiliate her. Still, she could have recovered from that. But this morning, he’d spun her that garbage about his mother knowing it would set her off-kilter.

That one minute—that New York minute, as he called it—had changed everything.

Rachel didn’t have it in her to hide her outrage. Garrett took careful observation of her rigid posture, her hand still slammed against the glass, her doubtless heightened color.

One side of his mouth curled.

What kind of person lies about his mother’s death?

Not a person … a Shark. A slimy, ruthless predator.

And the blood in the water was hers.

GARRETT WATCHED HIS FATHER approaching, plowing through the crowded bar like a frigate through a flotilla of pleasure craft.

Garrett drained his beer glass. The beer here at O’Dooley’s was on tap, rather than the bottled beers favored by the other bars in the locale. “Here comes my date,” he told Clive Barnes.

Clive took one look at Admiral Dwight Calder’s uniform—service khakis, suggesting there’d been no high-powered meetings today—and much-decorated chest, and stood. “I feel like I should salute,” he said out of the corner of his mouth, though the admiral would never hear him over the din of the Friday-night drinkers.

“Don’t encourage him,” Garrett said.

Clive polished off his beer. “Time I went home to Wifey.” He nodded to Garrett’s father as he left.

“Who was that?” his father asked. He pulled out the chair Clive had vacated and sat.

“A colleague.”

Dwight frowned. “He was wearing a pink shirt.”

“I have one just like it at home,” Garrett lied. He cursed his own childish reaction. When would he learn not to rise to his dad’s narrow views? “You want a beer?” he asked.

“Thanks.” Dwight glanced around the bar. “So, this is the kind of place you hang out.”

Garrett signaled to one of the waiters, distinctive in green polos with a shamrock motif, to bring two beers. “Sometimes.”

Not often, actually. He wasn’t much of a social drinker, and drinking alone didn’t appeal—last night excepted. But when his father had asked to meet tonight, Garrett hadn’t wanted to commit to a whole meal. He’d suggested his dad meet him here at seven, giving him plenty of time for the “drink and chat” that Clive had suggested.

Neither he nor his dad was a fan of small talk, so they waited for their beers in silence.

Garrett pondered his conversation with Clive, who’d been keen to understand how genuine Garrett’s interest in the partnership was.

The truth? He’d initially refused to let his name go forward because a partnership smacked too much of losing his independence. But his refusal had niggled at him. He wasn’t sure if he’d done the right thing. At the last minute, he’d decided he might as well keep his options open.

This morning, his knee-jerk reaction to Tony’s announcement had been to quit. He didn’t doubt for a second that he could outperform both Rachel and Clive, but that wasn’t the point. He hated that kind of manipulation.

But even worse, he hated to display his emotions in public. He would quit on Monday, right after he told Tony, in private, what he thought of KBC’s idiotic plan to save money. Garrett wasn’t about to hang around in a firm that thought so little of him it would toss him out on a whim. Always be the first to leave—the philosophy had served him well.

He would walk out of KBC with no regrets. Last night, two bottles of champagne had convinced him the partnership was something he could do on his own terms. This morning had proven him wrong, and that was fine. Like he’d told Rachel yesterday, “Let it go.”

Of course, he’d been aware of the irony of those words. Aware he was drinking in a futile attempt to let go himself. He’d failed, as he did at this time every year, to stem the rising tide of regret. Of bitterness.

Rachel’s situation had seemed blessedly uncomplicated, compared with his own inner turmoil. It was obvious her boyfriend was dumping her; equally obvious she was hanging on for dear life. Begging.

Twice in his life Garrett had begged. Big mistake .

The waiter arrived. He set down two beers and a bowl of nuts, picked up the old glasses and started to leave. Dwight cleared his throat significantly, then lowered his gaze a fraction to indicate a ring of liquid on the table. The waiter muttered an apology as he wiped the table, double-quick.

Garrett took a slug of his second drink of the night, which at last took the edge off the headache he’d been squinting through all day. He just wanted to get through this meeting, or whatever it was, and go home to bed.

His father cleared his throat again, but this time it wasn’t in lieu of a spoken command. “Many happy returns of the day.”

His dad would never say Happy Birthday if he could find a more formal alternative.

“Thanks.” Garrett forced himself to respond reasonably, instead of saying something inflammatory like, What do you care?

A woman carrying a guitar squeezed past their table, followed a moment later by two guys, one of them also lugging a guitar case. Must be the band, headed for the small stage in the far corner.

“Did you. Do anything special?” Dwight asked. He never said um or uh , so any hesitation sounded like a full stop. “Thirty is. A milestone.” He took a quick drink.

Two hesitations in the space of a minute. What was going on?

“I got shortlisted for partner at KBC today,” Garrett said, buying himself time to work out his dad’s agenda.

Why had he said that? What was the point of telling his father about a promotion that he didn’t intend to stick around to get? It wasn’t as if Dad would be impressed.

He braced himself for a lecture about getting a “real job.” Namely, one in the armed forces, one that mattered.

His father surprised him by saying, “Good.” He took another drink of his beer. Not his usual measured pace.

“If I get the partnership—” shut up , Garrett warned himself, stop right there, you’re not doing this “—I’ll be chief creative officer.” Dammit, the alcohol he’d consumed over the past twenty-four hours had loosened his mouth.

Dwight’s glass thudded onto the table. “Chief creative officer?”

This was why Garrett should have stopped.

“What would anyone there know about being an officer? ” his father asked. “About discipline and structure?”

“Nothing at all,” Garrett said with heartfelt relief. His father’s rigid adherence to discipline and structure were what had driven them apart, and Garrett’s choice of career had done nothing to fill the gap. Dwight derided the advertising industry as frivolous, billions of dollars spent giving people choices they didn’t need. As far as he was concerned, there was only one way to do anything: his way.

As Dwight leaned forward the four metal stars on his collar denoting his rank, polished to a high gleam, caught the light. “Wouldn’t a job like that involve commanding a team?”

“Leadership is part of it, yes.” Might as well give his father enough rope to hang him.

“You don’t have the right attitude for that,” Dwight said. “You need to blend authority with a genuine interest in your men.”

“I’m definitely not interested in men,” Garrett agreed, using flippancy, guaranteed to drive his father nuts, to mask his annoyance.

Without knowing the first thing about it, Dwight had decided Garrett didn’t deserve the promotion. Garrett was tempted to prove him wrong. To stick around, win the partnership. Then quit, which would give Tony and the other partners a lesson in how not to run a partnership selection.

Not worth the hassle, he decided. There were other agencies he could go to right away. Lots of them.

Dwight was inhaling noisily, his face turning slightly purple. If Garrett had been one of his father’s “men,” he’d have feared imminent court-martial.

“If you want to learn leadership, Garrett, you should get a real job,” Dwight said. “You could make something of yourself.”

Here we go . Garrett drained his glass, glad he hadn’t been naive enough to think they could survive a whole meal. He stood. “See you around, Dad,” he said, confident it was highly unlikely. Madison Avenue might not be far from USUN, the United States Mission to the United Nations, where his father was an adviser, but their paths never intersected.

“Sit down,” Dwight ordered.

Yeah, right. Garrett wasn’t about to start obeying his father’s commands at this late stage. He left the role of the “good son” to his brother, Lucas.

“Please,” Dwight said.

Garrett stared. Dad learned a new word .

When his father pointed at the chair, he sat down again.

Dwight closed his eyes for a moment before he spoke. “I know this is a. Difficult day for you.”

“But not for you?” Garrett asked.

Irony was wasted on his father. “That’s why I wanted to see you.”